Word: oaths
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Title 5, Section 7311 of the U.S. Code, which states that a federal civil servant may not continue to hold his job if he takes part in a strike against the Government; and the oath, signed by all federal employees, not to strike. But firing a federal employee is not as easy as a form letter. Two weeks after the first pink slip went out, the matter was still very much...
...wistful inner ear, one imagines a soft transcontinental buzz, the sound of 13,000 consciences alert and intricately working. "Well," says each troubled voice, "I'd like to strike. I think we have plenty of reason to strike-wages, hours, job strain. But I signed an oath when I took the job. It would be dishonorable to strike. We have to find some other...
...waves in a sea shell. It did not occur to the air-traffic controllers to deliver that sort of archaic soliloquy, haunted by scruples. Most of them judged, briskly enough, that their desire for a 32-hour week and a minimum of $30,462 per year superseded the oath to which they once put their signatures...
...moment the issue of the violated oath did not come clear. It was deflected a little by a legal question: Don't all workers have a right to strike? Yes, said the American Civil Liberties Union. Not if they are government employees, said a 1947 law and the Reagan Administration. The strikers chose the A.C.L.U.'s view of things...
...beyond transient legalities, the strike opened the door upon a more primitive question: What is the worth (moral, financial, mystical) of a person's oath? What do we mean when we promise, when we vow, when we pledge our word? Whatever their union's legal case may be, the controllers did take an oath; was that not a binding deed? Many Americans found themselves distantly disturbed that what was once a matter of some human solemnity should be brushed aside as if it were merely a technical detail. The social edifice shuddered slightly; down in the basement...